• GILBERT P. BAYORAN
The implementation of RA 11953, or the New Agrarian Reform Emancipation, Act, has benefitted 6,125 beneficiaries in Negros Occidental who have been freed from their debts amounting to P816,688,884.
RA No.11953 condones all the unpaid amortizations of the principal debt, including interest and surcharges, if any, incurred by agrarian reform beneficiaries.
Under the new law, the national government will assume the payment of unpaid amortization of farmers to the Land Bank of the Philippines.
Agrarian Reform Undersecretary for Foreign Assisted and Special Projects Office Jesry Palmares and Assistant Secretary Rodolfo Castil Jr. led the distribution of the certificates of condonation with release of mortgage (CoCRoM) and land titles to agrarian reform beneficiaries, witnessed by Vice. Gov. Jeffrey Ferrer and Mayor Salvador Escalante Jr.
Senate Majority Leader Francisco Tolentino, who was the guest speaker in the activity, urged the beneficiaries to “take care of what you have just received, show gratitude to the government, and ensure that what you received will benefit your families as well as the nation.”
Eva Ligligan, 57-years-old from Pontevedra, received the CLOA in the name of her grandfather who distributed the landholding among his children.
Ligligan said she inherited the 3.5 hectares of land from her mother out of the 4.8 hectares originally owned by their grandfather.
She said the landholding has been with their family for over 15 years through the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program that was signed into law in 1988 by then President Corazon Aquino.
Ligligan said she is thankful for the program that condoned their loan amortization of P40,000 in the Land Bank of the Philippines.
“Now we will no longer worry about how to pay our loan, it is really a big burden taken off our shoulders,” she added.
On the other hand, Erlinda Dulman, a 70-year-old CoCRoM in Murcia, said she is thankful for the program that ‘erased’ all her financial obligations with the Land Bank of the Philippines.
Dulman’s condoned bank obligation amounted to P70,000, representing the unpaid amortization through the years.
In a report, DAR said 6,125 farmer-beneficiaries in Negros Occidental received a total of 9,707 CoCRoMs, covering 6,143 hectares of agricultural land.*
